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Jugged Rabbit or Hare

A stew of rabbit or hare cooked in a jug with stock, butter, onion, herbs, and optional port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Jugged Rabbit or Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rabbit

  1. Wipe the rabbit and cut it into joints.

  2. Flour the rabbit pieces and fry them quickly in hot butter in a frying pan.

  3. Transfer the rabbit to a stew jar.

Make the stock

  1. Slice and fry the onion, then pour the stock into the frying pan.

  2. Bring the stock to a boil and pour it over the meat in the stew jar.

Stew and finish

  1. Add the herbs and seasonings tied in muslin, cover tightly, and place in a tin of water.

  2. Cook for several hours.

  3. Mix the flour smoothly with a little cold water, then pour a bit of gravy into it.

  4. Return the mixture to the jar and allow it to boil.

  5. Add salt, pepper, and if desired, ⅓ cup of port wine.

  6. Serve with forcemeat balls and red currant jelly.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Rabbit + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,292 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rabbit
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, gentle stewing.
Butter
Fries the floured rabbit quickly, adding richness and browning the surface.
Flour
Coats the rabbit for browning and, mixed with stock, thickens the gravy.
Stock
Forms the cooking liquid that moistens the meat and becomes the gravy.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the stock as it fries.

The step that matters

Cook for several hours in a covered jar. Slow, moist heat in a tightly covered vessel breaks down the connective tissue in rabbit, so the meat becomes tender rather than tough. Rushing or letting the liquid boil hard can dry or toughen the meat.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rabbit, butter, onion, pepper, flour):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rabbit, butter, onion, pepper, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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